1. Technical Field
This invention relates to compositions for cleaning and enhancing the gloss of floors. More particularly it relates to a composition of the foregoing type which provides improved cleaning and gloss enhancing properties.
It is known in the prior art to use various ingredients such as polyacrylate polymer, wax, surfactant, solvents and plasticizers to enhance gloss and in some cases to also clean floors.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,747,880 discloses a floor care product which both cleans and shines. It includes an alkaline builder such as sodium carbonate, which is blended with an alkali-soluble polymer or resin, such as a styrene-acrylic acid copolymer, which functions as a film former. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,230,605 there is disclosed a floor cleaning composition which includes a terpolymer composed of methyl methacrylate, butyl acrylate and acrylic acid together with a surfactant which includes diethanolamine. U.S. Pat. No. 4,861,518 discloses a non-filming floor cleaner which includes non-ionic surfactants with monoethanolamine or ethylene glycol monobutyl ether and polyethylene glycol. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,342,551 there is disclosed a floor finish remover which utilizes glycol ethers as solvents and monoethanolamine citrate.
The prior art does not provide a composition for cleaning and enhancing the gloss of floors wherein a plasticizer acts in conjunction with other ingredients to provide not only gloss enhancement but give unexpected cleaning results on floor tile that has previously been coated with and without traditional floor finishes.
The objects of the invention therefore are:
a. Providing an improved composition for cleaning and enhancing the gloss of floors.
b. Providing a composition for cleaning and enhancing the gloss of floors which results in improved cleaning of the floor tile that has previously been coated with and without traditional floor finishes with additional gloss enhancement.
c. Providing a composition of the foregoing type which affords improved maintenance of floors.
d. Providing a composition of the foregoing type which affords gloss retention.
e. Providing a composition of the foregoing type which can be easily formulated into concentrates and diluted resulting in cost reduction.
f. Providing a composition of the foregoing type which obviates deleterious effects to the floor finish or substrate.
These and still other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description which follows. In the detailed description below preferred embodiments of the invention will be described in reference to the full scope of the invention. Rather, the invention may be employed in other embodiments.
The shortcomings of the prior art are overcome and the foregoing objects are accomplished by the composition of this invention which can clean and enhance the gloss of floors. In one embodiment, the composition includes 0.1-30% by weight of a glycol solvent, 0.1-30% of a plasticizer which can both clean and enhance gloss of a floor coating, 0.1-30% of a nonionic surfactant, an amine, and optionally water.
In another embodiment, the plasticizer is a tributoxyethyl phosphate and the glycol solvent is diethylene glycol monoethyl ether.
In a preferred embodiment, the glycol solvent is diethylene glycol monobutyl ether.
In still another embodiment, the nonionic surfactant is a C8-C15 hydrocarbon with 1 to 10 moles of ethoxylation and the amine is diethanolamine.
In yet another embodiment, there is included an amide having a C8-C20 hydrocarbon chain and the amide is a diethanolamine amide of oleic acid which is also known as cocamide diethanolamine.
In still another embodiment, there is included a high melting point oxidized polyethylene wax.
In yet another embodiment, the composition includes ethylene diamine triacetic acid, as well as a coloring agent and a fragrance.